Accessibility, Usability, and Integrating Free Assistive Tech into the Developer Toolbox

By Annie Sommer

The Bottom Line

• Developers are unfamiliar with how disabled people actually use the computer
• Without any context, it is impossible to design accessible websites
• User testing can leave out the disabled, but it shouldn’t
• Familiarizing developers with assistive technology will encourage innovation in accessible design
• The NVDA Screenreader is the most freely available and relevant assistive technology
• The NVDA Screenreader should be integrated into the developer toolbox

Web Accessibility

Web Accessibility is a term used to describe designing websites, software, and documents in such a way that is interpretable by people of varying abilities. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0  (WCAG) are a set of rules that dictate whether or not a certain element is accessible to people with disabilities. The WCAG 2.0 guidelines are accepted as the most thorough and broad-spectrum standards as related to accessibility by the US Access board. 

Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 is what federally mandates (to certain entities) that web technology must be accessible to all. However, WCAG 2.0 is much more thorough and subsumes many if not all of the guidelines set out in Section 508. Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act has long been in re-development to harmonize itself with WCAG 2.0. Therefore, WCAG 2.0 web guidelines are the gold-standard in accessibility, and development should be focused on those standards.

Although virtually every designer knows of web accessibility, often it is the lowest priority in development and is considered an “extra” consideration. However, web accessibility is constantly becoming more and more relevant, as research has shown that a highly accessible website will be highly usable by design (Swierenga, 2011). Accessibility is important to consider at every stage of the development process to keep costs down; post-mortem action to ameliorate accessibility problems is much more expensive than building in accessibility from the ground up. Accessible design is also key to one of the fastest growing demographics on the web; the elderly. As the American population ages, accessibility will become increasingly relevant.

    Web accessibility is focused on a broad range of disabilities. Both cognitive and physical disabilities were taken into account when the WCAG 2.0 guidelines were written. One of the main focuses of the guidelines are to harmonize the experience of users who do not use assistive technology and those that do. Assistive technology can come in many forms; a keyboard can be assistive technology if someone with painful carpal tunnel syndrome cannot use a mouse. A refreshable braille display (figure 1) might assist a user who is both hard of hearing and visually disabled use the computer. Blind or otherwise visually impaired users may use a screen reader to navigate both the web and other software. For these reasons, it is highly important to consider users of assistive technology at every stage of the design process.

            Figure 1

Accessibility and User Centered Design

User Centered design is the currently the governing philosophy in web design and centers the potential user of a product at every stage of development. User personas, user experience research, are all aspects of user-centered design. Accessibility can and should be an integral part of user-centered design, but all too often developers are unfamiliar with how disabled people actually interact with their products, which leads to major accessibility problems later, even if the designer is well versed in accessibility theory and guidelines. If a developer has never attempted to navigate a page using only a screen reader and keyboard, it would be extremely difficult for that person to design a user-centered web experience for a blind person. Expecting anything different would be akin to giving an amateur cook a recipe for something they have never seen or eaten, then serving it in a 5 star restaurant. 

NVDA

Non Visual Desktop Access is an open source screen reader software than can be downloaded for free. It is a comprehensive screen reader that can be used to navigate the desktop and other files and software as well as the web. It also has a braille display output capability. Over 77,000 users rely on NVDA to use the computer.  NVDA has revolutionized accessibility testing by making screen readers available to developers for free. NVDA is open source and was began by Michael Curran in 2006 with the mission of providing a free screen reader to the blind. NVDA continues to be the only free screen reader option available for download, with the next most popular screenreader, JAWS of freedom scientific, costing over $1,000. NVDA is a microsoft-only program, but it is the most popular screen reader out today.

Apple products have a built in screen-reader, a program called VoiceOver. With a few simple key commands, Mac users can listen to exactly what their pages would sound like to a visually impaired person.  

The Importance Adopting Assistive Technology

    Familiarizing developers with assistive technology such as NVDA is crucial to the development of user-centered accessible design. Currently, there are two informal approaches to accessibility. The first is for those who may want to test surface level accessibility issues and may use an automated tool to check for errors. Because accessibility is highly nuanced, this is not recommended. The next way is the most comprehensive and valid, and involves an accessibility specialist using assistive technology to manually review pages against the WCAG 2.0 guidelines. Many rounds of testing occur, usually of “stage” fully functional prototypes or final websites, near or after launch. This involves two fully distinct teams: web developers and accessibility specialists, and involves a back and forth which can be slow and expensive. Once accessibility testing has occurred, a report is given to the developers detailing any accessibility issues.  The developers then interpret the report and fix the issues to the best of their ability, and then either publish the website or continue testing. The most popular issues deal with screen reader use; keyboard accessible, alternative text for non-text content, and document structure.  If a developer is unfamiliar with using a screen reader or moving through a page without visual access to that page, correctly implementing accessibility standards is difficult.  

Figure 2

The above diagram (figure 2) shows a simplified representation of the path of content from creator to user. Web content must be presented and structured by designers in such a way that is interpretable through multiple channels including assistive technology. Actually using a screen reader to regularly test pages and elements at multiple points in the design process would allow for faster outputs and more innovation in terms of accessible design. The path from browser to assistive technology (in this case the NVDA screen reader) and then screen reader to user is the most difficult path to visualize without actually using a screen reader. The simplicity and low cost of NVDA make it a perfect solution to this issue. Familiarizing developers with how screen readers work eliminates barriers between cutting-edge development and accessibility. For example, one of the most complex and nuanced accessibility issues is also one of the most common. The raw html structure of a web page is the most important component for screen-reader accessible web pages. Heading structure must be semantically correct in order for the screen reader to move through the page in a way that makes sense. This principle is straightforward enough, yet it is documented across various standards in vague language. In essence, web pages must be read in order and make sense when read by a screen reader. If a developer is familiar with using a screen reader, this will be a simple concept to grasp and they are more likely to code using correct heading structure.

Conclusion

    As accessible practices become more and more mainstream, it is important for web developers to stay abreast of and familiar with assistive technology. NVDA is the most affordable, cutting edge, and widely used and available form of assistive technology out today. NVDA should be integrated into the developer toolbox in order to strive for a more inclusive future for the web.

Citations:

Swierenga, Sarah J., et al. "Website design and usability assessment implications from a usability study with visually impaired users." Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. Users Diversity. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2011. 382-389.